The Buzz Williams era in College Park is here.
Maryland men’s basketball will unofficially kick off its season Monday night in an exhibition game against UMBC. It’ll be fans’ first opportunity to watch an overhauled program.
Last season’s “Crab Five” led the Terps to their first Sweet 16 appearance in nine years. But former coach Kevin Willard’s departure to Villanova tainted a strong season, leaving Williams with a completely barren cupboard and an entirely new roster.
The Diamondback compiled five numbers that help explain what could define the Terps’ 2025 season.
11: The number of points Isaiah Watts averaged last season, the highest from a player on Maryland’s roster
There isn’t a clear top offensive option on Maryland’s team entering the season. Watts, Myles Rice, Pharrel Payne and Elijah Saunders each averaged between 10 and 11 points last season.
Not having an offensive superstar isn’t inherently a bad thing. The Big Ten champions, Michigan State, didn’t roster a player who averaged more than 12.8 points a game. Instead, seven Spartans averaged between seven and 13 points, proving to be one of the most balanced offenses in the country.
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The Terps could follow that offensive model. Or maybe a player like Rice, Watts or Diggy Coit could take a sizable leap and become the team’s clear first option. Only time will tell.
15: The number of new players on Maryland’s roster
Fifteen players, you say? But that’s everyone!
Correct.
Maryland lost its entire roster to graduation, the draft or the transfer portal after Willard left. The Terps’ new coach then spent his next two months signing four players from Texas A&M, five high school recruits and six from other schools.
Williams could have brought back a scholarship player or two from last year’s roster, but he chose not to. He started from scratch instead, spending lots of time over the offseason focused on team bonding. The team went to the National Aquarium in Baltimore, the National Museum of African American History and Culture and different sites in Washington, D.C. Williams also ran a multi-week boot camp in September.
It’s still unlikely the team will have on-court chemistry from the start, as Maryland was one of just two Big Ten teams to completely rebuild its roster.
16.5: The average number of wins for Buzz Williams in his first season at a new school
Williams has made the NCAA tournament 11 times in his 18 years as a head coach. But of his four previous stops — New Orleans, Marquette, Virginia Tech and Texas A&M — the Golden Eagles were the only team that Williams led to the Big Dance in his first season at the helm.
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Williams’ teams average a .508 winning percentage in his first season as head coach. That would place Maryland in the bottom of the Big Ten and out of contention for the NCAA tournament.
But this offseason was different than any Williams experienced in the past, he said, because it was his first time taking a new job during the Name, Image and Likeness and revenue sharing era. So for better or for worse, things could be different this time around.
41.4: Texas A&M’s offensive rebound percentage last season
If there’s one thing to know about Williams, it’s that he’s obsessed with offensive rebounds. Texas A&M led the country in offensive rebounding rate each of the last two seasons and ranked top seven or better in the SEC in all six of his seasons.
Williams said he isn’t sure what the Terps’ offensive style will be. But he does know he wants his teams to “shoot more balls than the other team.” Grabbing offensive rebounds to produce second-chance points is a large part of that equation.
It’s fair to expect Williams’ first team in College Park to finish close to the top of the conference in the category. The coach brought with him two of the Aggies’ top four offensive rebounders last season in Payne and Solomon Washington.
Saunders has good size at 6-foot-8, 240 pounds, Northeastern transfer Collin Metcalf grabbed two offensive rebounds a game last season and redshirt freshman forward George Turkson Jr. touts himself as a hard-nosed player.
-7.4: The drop in Myles Rice’s rim field goal percentage from his first to second season
Rice is a prime candidate to lead Maryland in scoring this season. In order for that to happen, though, the 6-foot-3 Indiana transfer will have to perform closer to his 2023-24 level at Washington State than his showing last season.
Rice converted on 53.6 percent of his shot attempts at the rim last season, according to Bart Torvik, a below average clip for a lead guard. He shot 61 percent at the rim two years ago at Washington State on 44 more attempts.
As the possible engine of Maryland’s offense, Williams is betting that Rice returns to that form, when he was the second-leading scorer for a Washington State team that won an NCAA tournament game. If Rice produces another inefficient and underwhelming campaign, however, it could spell trouble for the Terps’ offense.
